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Apple Launches ITunes App Store With 500+ Apps

Posted by timothy on from the first-one's-free-except-not-really dept.

L. Miriam writes "Apple launched the iTunes App store for the iPhone and iPod Touch today, following the earlier launch of iTunes 7.7. There are over 500 applications available for download, with prices ranging from free to around $35. Both MySpace and Facebook apps are there, as well as a mix of games, utilities and ebooks. You can download applications now, but you can't do anything with them until the iPhone/iPod 2.0 firmware is released. The App Store can't be accessed directly through iTunes, but Mobile Computer explains how to get to it, and has a few screenshots, too."

5 of 121 comments (clear)

  1. You can access it directly within iTunes. by Trolan · · Score: 5, Informative

    There's a section in Preferences -> General which controls which categories you have on the panel on the left. One of those available to display now is "Applications" which will happily take you to that section of the iTunes Store.

  2. Re:That would be this... by BarryJacobsen · · Score: 5, Informative

    A bit more info, once you download that firmware open up iTunes and hold down option (shift for you windows users) and click the "Check for Update" button - it will now ask you where the file is. Updating mine as I type this, I'll post how it went when it's done.

    Oh and direct link since I'm a whore: http://appldnld.apple.com.edgesuite.net/content.info.apple.com/iPhone/061-4955.20080710.bgt53/iPhone1,2_2.0_5A347_Restore.ipsw

    --
    Track your TV Shows with your iPhone - FREE
  3. iPhone Developer Program by tipo159 · · Score: 5, Insightful

    By current guesses, Apple had about 25k developers sign up for the iPhone Developer Program and only let 5k in. I am sure that the 20k developers who are (still) locked out are pleased as punch that the 5k got first opportunity to get their apps into the App Store.

    Apple has been giving away the SDK, but you need to be in the developer program to run your code on an actual device (or to get your app into the App Store). They say that the Simulator in the SDK should be good enough even if it can't simulate one of the more interesting features of the iPhone/iPod touch, the accelerometer.

    The iPhone and iPod touch are so cool that we just put up with everything that Apple does and be happy little developers until Apple thinks we deserve to be let in, right?

    1. Re:iPhone Developer Program by quadelirus · · Score: 5, Insightful

      The problem is getting found as the great blow you away Sudoku app when there are already 25 poorly written ones in the App store that have already been downloaded and so (maybe) show up higher in search results, only because you couldn't enter the market on the ground floor. (BTW I'm not saying that the sudoku apps in the store are bad, haven't actually looked at them myself--just using them as an example).

      Of course, it may very well be (and hopefully is) that Apple has a better algorithm for bringing up new apps to users than that.

      If you spend 5.99 on a sudoku app in the next week are you really going to buy a much better one in a month? Probably not, you probably won't even be looking for one. Not that sudoku is the killer app for the iphone but the app that is already available is going to have a HUGE leg up on the app that isn't yet in the store.

  4. Re:"500" by EastCoastSurfer · · Score: 5, Insightful

    An app for the iPhone seems similar to the lockin one gets buying a game for the DS or PSP. Sure, Apple is controlling all distribution, but free apps are fine and I haven't seen anything that prevents you from releasing the source code of your app on your own website.

    Overall, the iPhone ecosystem is one that other phone makers are going to try and copy because it's easy for the users and appears to just work.